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A quiet snort escapes her nose.

“It gets worse,” I promise. “I decide for the grand finale, I’ll stick an apple in his mouth. I stride over, dramatic music playing. I bend down, wedge the apple between his teeth, and step back to aim.”

“He woke up,” she guesses, her voice vibrating.

“He woke up angry. Barnaby spits the apple out, scrambles to his hooves, and charges. Head down, horns locked. He hits me square in the junk.” I groan, miming the impact, doubling over my knees. “Folded me like a cheap lawn chair in front of four hundred people. The crowd loses their minds. They think it’s a comedy routine. Barnaby rampages into the front row, eats the mayor’s cotton candy, and escapes under the tent flap. I lay in the sawdust questioning my life choices for a solid ten minutes.”

A sound breaks free from Sloane’s chest. It starts as a breathless gasp, a hitch in her throat, and then spills over into a full, genuine laugh. It alters her entire face. The severe lines melt away. Her eyes crinkle at the corners, bright and unguarded, the ice thawing into something brilliant and warm. She ducks her head, pressing a hand over her mouth, but her shoulders shake with the force of it.

She’s laughing so hard a tear gathers at the corner of her eye and slips down her cheek. My chest goes tight. The air leaves my lungs. I sit perfectly still, terrified that moving a single muscle will spook her.

Sloane catches her breath, then her thumb comes up, brushing the stray tear from her skin. She blinks, and the laughter dies.

I watch the vault slam shut again. It happens in real time. Her spine goes rigid, turning to rebar. The warmth drains from her eyes, replaced by the familiar, impenetrable frost. She drops her hand to her side and takes a distinct step backward, putting distance between us.

“You okay?” I ask, keeping my voice low, dropping the humor entirely.

She shakes her head, a quick, jerky motion. Then she nods. “I’m going to sleep.”

She grabs her jacket off the crate.

“Hold on,” I protest, pushing off the wooden barrier. “Deke has brisket on the smoker. Eat dinner first.”

“I’m not hungry.”

She doesn’t look at me again. She turns on her heel and walks out of the Big Top, her sneakers silent against the sawdust, slipping through the tent flap and disappearing into the night.

I stand alone in the center of the ring, staring at the empty space she left behind. One step forward. Two massive steps back. She gave me a glimpse of the woman buried under all that armor, and the exposure terrified her enough to send her running.

I pick up the knife from the sawdust. I flip it, catching it by the handle, the steel familiar and cold in my grip.

She can run. She can lock the door of that Airstream all she wants. But she laughed.

I turn and hurl the blade across the ring. It buries itself dead center in the wooden target board with a violent, satisfying thud.

I’m a patient man. Or at least I can be with some effort. And I never miss my mark.

6

SLOANE

The smell of cedar and cheap cigarettes floods my lungs. A heavy footstep creaks in the hallway. The brass knob on my bedroom door slowly turns.

I snap awake, my chest heaving, fingers locked into the thin quilt. The trailer is silent. The door is bolted.

I drop my head back against the mattress and stare at the ceiling, waiting for the frantic thumping against my ribs to slow. The monster in my head changes shape depending on the year. At first, it was pure, unadulterated terror. I spent the early days scanning bus terminals and diner booths, certain Raymond would track me down. Certain he would find June and drag us both back. Worse, I feared he would turn his flat, gray eyes on my daughter and ruin her exactly the way he ruined me.

Then, the terror softened into a twisted, desperate kind of gratitude. I convinced myself the suffering possessed a purpose. Every bruise, every locked door, every violation became the currency I paid to bring June into the world. The pain bought me the only good thing I ever had. It felt worth it.

Then a truck hydroplaned on wet asphalt, the windshield shattered, and the gratitude rotted straight into hatred. Black, suffocating hatred.

It is his fault. All of it. If Raymond hadn’t touched me, I wouldn’t have run. I wouldn’t have spent my youth scrubbing hotel sheets. I wouldn’t have been a teenage mother. I wouldn’t have had June, I wouldn’t have loved her with every single cell in my body, and I wouldn’t have lost her. He dug the grave. He just made me wait five years to fall into it.

A violent, jagged energy spikes in my chest, demanding an outlet before it shatters my ribs. I kick off the blankets, strip out of my sleep clothes, and yank on a pair of gray sweatpants and a loose black T-shirt. I lace up my running shoes and shove the door open.

The morning air hits my face, cool and sharp. I drop into a lunge against the hitch of the trailer, stretching my calves, letting the physical burn distract my brain.

Gravel crunches nearby, and Jonah walks past a stack of wooden crates, carrying a canvas duffel over one massive shoulder. He pauses. His green eyes—startlingly bright against his dark skin—drag over my frame. The look lacks the oily, suffocating weight of a man undressing a woman with his eyes. He reads me the way a contractor assesses a load-bearing wall. He sees the tension coiled in my spine.